Chewbacca growled obscenities at the comm grid once again. This had to have been the thousandth time he'd reversed the signal, tweeking the frequency only slightly in hopes that it would hit home and he'd reach Han. Of course, this was the /Falcon/, so not only was the search not working, but the comm grid had decided to make a fuss about it's repeated use and feign exhaustion.

Chewie resisted the urge to pound the machine into mechanical mulch with his fist. He sat for a few moments, then switched his attention to other repairs. A short time later his instincts got the better of him and he turned back to the grid, pummeling the unit with both rather harry paws, howling in vexation.

He was running out of Wookiee curses when Jacen trudged into the cockpit, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

"What are you doing?" he asked in the middle of a yawn. The action contorted his words to such a degree that for a moment Chewie thought that the boy had just told him to "sing at foreigners" in Shyriiwook. It threw him for a moment until he deciphered what Jacen had actually meant.

He moaned a reply. It was late in the morning and he'd been up all night with Lando, who was now in the galley, snoring off a glass of ale which had been the only thing keeping him running up until then. It went without saying that Chewie had a legal right to go completely bonkers based on the amount of sleep he'd acquired over the last few days.

"I didn't think you were supposed to break the things you're repairing." Jacen drug himself inside the room and plopped down in the pilot seat. He looked like a miniature Han Solo, sprawled out and looking exhausted. Chewie had finally ordered the boy to bed after the sun rose over Coruscant's skyline, figuring that Han would have killed him for letting the kid go without sleep for so long. He could see that Jacen could still hardly keep his eyes open.

Chewie barked a short response.

"Well just cause Dad does it doesn't make it a good idea."

They both laughed as Chewie noticed a red light blinking on the comm, it was registering the message Han sent. He swivelled his co-pilot chair around to block Jacen's view and placed his hands behind his head.

"Do you think he's alright?" Jacen asked solemnly.

Chewie looked out at the stars, trying to look like he was certain as he told Jacen that he Han could get out of anything. He felt right then that he was robbing Jacen of the security of knowing that his father was alive, but knew that if he were to tell the boy that the likelihood of keeping the news from Luke would lower to near vacuity.



Chewie glanced behind him to find the indicator light had turned off and he pivoted his chair back around. As the chair spun past the comm unit Chewie winced minutely, hearing a small click from the back of the seat flicking on one of the switches. He turned back to the unit to late to turn it off, and the message came on loud and clear:

"Chewie, it's Han, I can't talk right now but I'll send another message later, track the signal. Whatever you do, don't tell Luke."

This time Chewie didn't hold back in his beatings of the infernal machine, and several pieces came flying off, littering the ground with shards of metal and transparisteel.

"What was that?" Jacen asked, coming up alongside Chewie.

The Wookie howled a lie at Jacen and pretended to look busy. He said that it was a really old message that the comm held onto because of a glitch.

"No it's not, that's Dad, you got a message from Dad!" Jacen said, obviously not buying his story. "Why didn't you tell everyone?"

Chewie tried to explain that he wasn't supposed to tell anyone because it would get back to Luke, but Jacen appeared unconvinced.

"Why wouldn't Dad want Luke to know about this?"

"Know about what?" Lando asked as he came into the cockpit, joining the discussion to Chewie's dismay.

The Wookie put his paws on his head and growled. This was not going well.

"Chewie has a message from Dad." Jacen said, leaning over Chewie and pushing the button to cue the communication.

It played over again and Lando glared at Chewie, "You got something like this and you didn't tell us."

Chewie rewound the message a few seconds and replayed the end. "Don't tell Luke," Han's voice said over the speakers.

"Okay, so we don't tell Luke, but she still could've trusted me and the kid," Lando replied.

"So we're not going to tell anyone?" Jacen asked, a little surprised.

Chewie growled an unmistakable "No."

"Did you track the signal? Where are they?" Lando quizzed as he started examining the comm unit himself.



Chewie howled a response.

"So we've got nothing?" Lando asked.

He nodded.

"Wonderful. We're back where we started."

- - -